Re Only the Paranoid Survive

makes sense as once you become complacent someone is bound to jump ahead.

Kodak had every chance to dominate the digital camera world after they invented it but they chose not to and paid the price.
they are still around today and make film, colour and black & white.
Ilford still make all their b&w films like FP4 and HP5 with a whole arrange of developers and fixers, including ID-11 (which was the one I started with)

Photography

.What happened was, That as a child and at school I was obsessed with Cameras and images, So in high school I did Photography and I had my own darkroom etc even back then, But then I left school and got a job as a Mechanic and my boss saw my photo work and pushed me to pursue it . Which I did, I was never without a camera in those days, That was one reason I left Australia so I could travel and take photos.So I had all the gear and Darkroom set up and one day I entered Photographic Competition and I Won a Nikon F4s which was worth about 4k back then, So I continued traveling overseas and building up a portfolio and I started getting photo jobs .  I then applied to go to UTS to get a Diploma which was 4 year course,But I was granted advanced standing and I only had to do 2 years .I worked as a Photographer doing a lot of Large format work and medium format work , Minium was 6x7 , Mostly Advertising, Promo idea shots .  .I then I wanted to photograph the Aboriginal remote communities in Arnhem land and so I lived in a Tent up there and photographed it all.I returned to Sydney and started working again as a photographer and the work was great and I loved it with all my soul ,BUT its a long time between paydays !!!About this time I met a woman in Sydney and one thing lead to another and I became a Dad,So I needed to stop traveling and I needed to know when the next pay was, So I gave it up and sold all my gear and darkroom stuff ... I then knocked on a guy's door and asked him to teach me French Polishing and finishes,,which he did as know . But you know! No Regrets! It took me all around the world on a shoestring ,,or as I use to say a Cobweb !   Plus have 3 daughters  !!


Pete

Pete

fantastic story! I'm lucky enough to have my grandads Mamiya RZ67 120 film camera which I use a fair bit.
my grandad was a professional press photographer who also did wedding photos.
not only that but he had a part ownership of a Cessna aeroplane which he occasionally used to fly into different locations to get 16mm footage on his Bolex H16 for GTV channel 9 long before any news services bought helicopters.
they used to send a taxi from Melbourne down to pick up the rolls of film to have them processed before the nightly news!

Lance .

It was a very active life I had back then. The trouble with Australia is there is not much here compared to the rest of the world, So If your a Builder or a Plumber I'm sure you would get a stable job, and if your content to stay a builder or a Plumber you can probably have a job for life.
But if you have chosen something offbeat to do for a living ,Its very very limited in Australia and this why most people who chose a different field leave OZ , When I was in 20s and 30s I hated Australia. I thought it was a dead boring hell hole of a place compared to Europe, Asia etc
With all the wonderful things overseas had to offer, we had football , Kangaroos and Holden cars .. It was so boring here years ago .
but these days its a bit better and at this stage in life I'm happy to be here , one day I would like to live in Asia full time again .
The Mamiya RZ67 was a good Camera in there day yes . Back then we would put Digital backs on large and medium formats sometimes..
These days I dont even Own a Camera !, I'm just too involved in other areas of life


pete

QUOTE: I've heard that in America there is a thing called Middle School - not sure where that fits in.

"Middle school" is usually grades 6 through 9. Used to known as "Junior High School". They changed the name, maybe because Jr high school kids like to flush firecrackers down the toilets in school. And they wouldn't do that in middle school?

I got kicked out of kindergarten. I didn't know what this strange place, and this stranger (teacher) telling me what to do. "Who the F are you, you're not my mom, you're a stranger" I thought. My mom told me not to do anything a stranger tells me to. Seems that kindergarten wasn't required then (1960).

My grammar school (what Americans unofficially call primary school) was grades 1 through 8, (no "middle school" though it was the same stuff taught) and then high school was 9 through 12. SAT gets taken in year 11 if you think you want to go to college. And it turns out that freshman year of college is not grade 13! College was about 20 times more difficult than high school ever was. And I went to a college prep high school. The high school guidance counselors never mentioned this, all they talked about was how to game the admissions system.

Terminlogy is different here, depending on which state or territory you are in and which education system you are in. I went to a public school in kindergarten and then from 1st class to 4th at a local catholic school run by the Sisters of Charity and then to an independent school run by the Christian Brothers.

I left school at the end of year 10, then also known as 4th form. I wouldn't have stayed an extra day and I dare say the school was glad to see the end of me. I pretty much didn't like being at school from day one until the end of my education.

My mates and I celebrated being 'free men' in style. Once the form master let us out we hit the milk bar and stuffed our faces with hamburgers, chips, scallops, fish cocktails and pretty much sampled everything else in the shop keeper's Bain Marie and washed it all down with a gallon of Coke. There was no misunderstanding that our school days were over. The wog behind the counter was an old bloke, he just laughed and shook his head when he looked over at us, probably jealous that he wasn't at the age where he could join us in the celebration.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

My late wife Jenny used to be the employment officer in our business. She had a saying:

"A University degree doesn't prove you know anything. It proves you know how to learn."

She went back to Uni as a mature age student, got her Psych masters with honours and a high distinction, and worked for a time as a counselor. At the same time I learned a lot proof-reading her assignments and thesis.

Over the years, I've heard many people claim that they learnt nothing at school. I beg to differ.
I reckon that the more you absorb the process at school, the easier you will find it to learn life's lessons. And you will learn them, without a doubt. How much pain you suffer in the process depends on the amount of "learning culture" you absorbed while your brain was still young and flexible.

How many early school leavers now regret leaving school early?

"A University degree doesn't prove you know anything. It proves you know how to learn."

I have interviewed maybe a hundred graduates over the decades, and also coached a few in how to prepare for and perform in interviews. My mantra for my 'students' was: The degree gets you the interview. The interview gets you the job.

What you learn in order to pass exams and what is needed on the job are sometimes poles apart. The ability to learn, and to learn quickly, is highly desired, especially in today's world, but so are personal drive, initiative and a methodical approach to problem solving.

The toughest positions to fill were those at the lowest levels of the organisation when we'd be typically interviewing a batch of fresh graduates with no related work experience and thus thin resumes. I would ask applicants to tell me about what they do in their spare time and I was especially interested in anyone who talked about community or volunteer work that they do or have done. I would also present a problem that would be new to them and ask them how they would go about solving it. This got them talking so we could gauge their ability to communicate and think on their feet, so to speak.

How many early school leavers now regret leaving school early?

Not me. Out of my form, 13 left after Y10 and 160-odd stayed on. Even in the late 1980s that was a high retention rate. Most of those who left at the time were classmates of mine. I don't know what any of them are doing now - over the years we all drifted apart and did our own things but all of them started apprenticeships. I do know that one went on to join the police force after finishing his time as a fitter and turner and I ended up as an electrician.

I agree with Ian's comment on the degree situation. In saying that there's smart and dumb people with degrees and also smart and dumb people who didn't do anything at university.

Look at some of the academics who dictate climate change, border protection, government policy and other highly contentious issues to us. They don't strike me as winners of the dux prize. Then there are people like Sir Frank Lowy, who's family came out to Australia to escape the persecution of Jews at the hands of Hitler and following that, the Communist infiltration of eastern Europe. He came out here with two bob in his pocket and is now a multi-billionaire who recently retired from owning the world's largest shopping mall company. He has no formal qualifications.

So I guess the bottom line is, a degree will help when the owner of it decides to work hard and be something. But having a degree (even a higher qualification) is no guarantee of success.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

QUOTE: What you learn in order to pass exams and what is needed on the job are sometimes poles apart

Something that is not taught in school that you definitely need in working life is "office politics", aka "social skills". Getting the boss to like you as a person, getting him to want to keep you around when the layoffs happen. One thing I've observed in every company I ever worked for, (over 40 years and about 12 places) when the yearly performance reviews come up, the following is always true: if the boss likes you as a person, if he'd share a beer with you after work, you'll get good reviews and good raises. It doesn't matter how well you do the job. Well, if you are a total screw-up, maybe you'll get a B instead of an A. Performance reviews in the USA have five categories; Far exceeds expectations = A, exceeds expectations = B, meets expectations = C, party meets expectations = D, doesn't meet expectations = F. Just like in school. But it's social skills, not knowledge. I've had bosses who really liked me, others that absolutely hated me, and several in between. And the performance reviews always tracked this. Friends I mentioned this to concur.

I'm retired now, so I no longer have to play this game... I have 13 patents over the years (no royalties, but I do get bragging rights!).

This is where the current system of referees for job interviews is flawed. Someone applies for a job and in their resume they disclose two work-related referees for the prospective employer to contact. The prospective employer has to rely on those referees being truthful about the applicant but this is next to impossible for the reasons WA2ISE outlined. If the boss didn't like the applicant, the prosectove employer will get an inaccurate record of the person's abilities and self-discipline and it's not always negative. Sometimes a boss will give an applicant a glowing record to a prospective employer in order to get rid of the employee without engaging in the legal minefield of dismissal.

In Australia, companies with more than 100 employees cannot summarily dismiss a worker unless they commit a crime on the job and even then, it is still sometimes difficult. There's been many cases where a company has been slandered by a worker or a worker has stolen the employer's property only for a subsequent dismissal to be overturned by the Fair Work Commission, leaving the employer liable to either reemploy the worker and reinstate any accumulated entitlements or negotiate a cash settlement with the worker. So in order to get rid of someone there has to be some sacrifice. It could be giving that employee a glowing reference or it could be done the way Kerry Packer used to do it. When he no longer liked someone at Channel 9 he'd walk into their office (probably without knocking on the door), throw a yellow envelope stuffed with hush money on the desk and just tell the person to pack their things and f-off. Billionaires tend to be able to get what they want and worry less about what it costs. He would have got 25% of it handed back to him by the tax office at the end of the year anyway.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

" Social Skills ""
Jobs for the Boys as we call it has always been alive and well unfortunately .. Right through my life time I have known so many people that got that Job not for their Skills ,But for who they were friends with. Contract Tradies can Line their bank accounts if their " one of the boys " The mates ! get the jobs . I have Relative who job it was to give the contracts for Australia's big projects .The Buildings in the major cites were his projects ...
But even in other areas of Employment that's how it works , So many people if they need a job they just put the word out and wait for the phone to ring .. They can do it because socially they one of gang. Ive worked places were legally they must advertise the job they are offering a job and all of us that worked there know that there was 2 boxes of job applications, One for the known and one for unknown, The unknown box was for the secretary to write the letters saying, Sorry not this time.
It has always been very important to be Social in this world for work ,
Whether you play the game and are one of the mates or you like to Row your own boat in life , Good Social skills are more important than your Education or qualifications because they affect all areas of your life from work to Gigi Gig . The best way to get Good Social skills is to be exposed to people from all walks of life and this also broaden your interests and you become involved in things you never thought of before. Many Asian families had the view in the past that their child needed to be the "best" to get ahead in life so the culture was to be very strict with study and so many Asians grew up with the best Education levels , But the tide has now turned because their social skills were left behind and this caused them Relationship issues and many have trouble relating to other people, So now in Asia its gone back to the old ways,, where social skills are more important because in Asia families, marriage, kids and friends are very important to them.

Eastman Kodak basically cut its own throat by not going digital & running parallel technology from what I see.

Due to family issues I basically bailed at what was form 5.

All of my qualifications etc. were done Adult learning after that & whilst working & mainly when I wasn't officially.

The main enemy here is nepotism, where you get pushed out of a job & replaced by some uneducated member of the clique. The amusing thing is that ever business, or enterprise that the clique infested here: Has failed. Poetic justice took a while but I did enjoy it when a factory I got pushed out of, had a Major incident.

I was a supervisor and the only supervisor with any form of formal chemical qualification. Naturally later, when something was caused to go wrong, there was nobody that had the foggiest idea of how to deal with it. That factory no longer exits.

One big issue with education, as mooted before, is that the schools were / are not turning out students with the skills needed by the employers. You have a greater chance of getting a job in this "dog eat dog" world if you can get the qualifications & skills someone needs or allow you to stand alone.

If you have any form of disability you really are at a disadvantage & take it from one who knows. Plus these employment mobs tend to be a racket & you are their revenue.

the current system of referees for job interviews is flawed.

Wherever possible I did referee follow-ups personally, and wherever possible I did it at shortlist time before deciding who to have in for an interview. Some companies have a policy of not giving personal references; they will only attest that the applicant worked at their organisation between this date and that date and held the position of whatever.

For senior roles we often used head hunters who did the initial interviews and wrote assessments. If the assessment was positive then we'd have them in for the formal interview, and if that was successful we'd put the candidate forward to the CEO or COO who would have a chat with them to satisfy themselves that the candidate would "fit" the company culture.

One advantage of using head hunters for senior roles is that the good ones are excellent networkers and they find people who have worked with the applicants and get 'off the record' references.

I have had this references process blow up on me spectacularly. In a perfect storm situation, an applicant interviewed very well on the technical side but I had concerns about his personality and his ability to work in a team. The interview panel was my boss, the obligatory HR rep and myself for whom he'd be working. The interview was done on the day before Good Friday. Although the other two panel members thought he was OK, I wanted to follow up his references personally after the long weekend. However, the HR person, trying to be efficient and wanting to get away for the weekend, and forgetting to cc me, emailed a Letter of Offer draft to my boss who said "go ahead". A few days after Easter my boss was terminated by the CEO for reasons we were never told about. He was walked out of the building by security.

Meanwhile said applicant signed the Letter of Offer and I'm still in the dark. I did some digging and found that the written references he had provided were unable to be verified as the people he cited were uncontactable -- either living overseas or in parts unknown.

Long story short: this guy turned out to be a royal PIA. I was instructed by my new boss to put him on 'performance management' which took up an inordinate amount of my time and energy. Eventually he was given go away money and also walked to the door by security.

From that point on, I was very sure to get references checked properly, preferably doing it myself or making sure that whoever did it knew what they were doing.

Epilogue: A few years later a head hunter called me about this guy in relation to a job he had applied for in another state. He nominated my terminated boss as a reference, but this head hunter knew me from way back and she was a good networker. My response to her was "I have absolutely nothing to say about that individual, whatsoever". She replied: "Message received and understood. Thank you."

The Key to Employment is to work for yourself, One of the delusions we all get when having a job is a false sense of security and the truth is any day you can be made obsolete. If happens when your 30 its ok , If it happens when your 50 your in the Shit with no experience in working for your self and trying to get another Job over 50 is a very very long shot .
Look at Bunnings, All those older guys work there as there are not many other options, They get low hours and crap money.
I have done both , I have worked in straight jobs and I have worked for myself, Working for myself wins hands down .

; The threat of being laid off when your not expecting it is gone.
: The Money was far better in case
: you're Responsible for your own affairs .;
: Its more flexible.
: but its longer hours,
: There is also a great satisfaction you get following your own dream of how to make a living. I would never go back to working a straight 9 to 5 job again, Its dead end ! and allows no time to do other things with your life, Family, etc or other ambitions and generally, the money is week to week living and you start again.
The Exception to this would be a very good Government Job that offers a future ,,,But boy that form of thinking that common in Government positions is brain deadening ...

I best get off this computer and get back to it, I'm building shelving today to display and store my Records,,

PS My old boss has never had a job in his life , Runs his own Business, We have been friends for over 30 years and ive seen him when its good and when its been bad ! But now he is 75 and still works most days at what he loves to do ....


Pete